Times Cryptic No 27564 – Saturday January 18th 2020. Hard, not hard.

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This was a slow solve for me, but really there isn’t anything fearsome involved. The clue of the day for me was the elegant 5dn. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets].

Across
1 Tell-tale phone call taken earlier (7-6)
WHISTLE-BLOWER – WHISTLE (call), BLOWER (phone – a rather dated expression, wot?)
8 What bowlers aim for: leg side to start with (4)
PINS – PIN (leg), S[ide] “to start with”. So, not a cricketing clue … ten-pin bowling!
9 Strain shown by Sun worker in print department (10)
TYPESETTER – TYPE (strain), SETTER (sun). True, the sun also rises …
10 Dealer caught by dogged police officer? (8)
CHANDLER – C (caught), HANDLER (a police officer in the dog squad). A ships’ chandler for example, not Raymond.
11 Outburst from one brought into commerce (6)
TIRADE – I in TRADE.
13 Cheat within short time, being fickle (10)
INCONSTANT – CON within INSTANT.
16 Pot for reheated meat and vegetables (4)
HASH – double definition. The first is marijuana, not a cooking pot.
17 Language restriction from Speaker (4)
THAI – sounds like TIE.
18 Writer, intense, on taking in NI peninsula (10)
RICHARDSON – RICH (intense), ON, taking in ARDS. I didn’t know either the author or the geographical place. Luckily my better half looked over my shoulder at the helpers and said, ‘Richardson’.
20 Echo in violent anger demands floral tribute (6)
WREATH – E (echo) in WRATH.
22 Melancholy men reversed in top gear (8)
SOMBRERO – SOMBRE, OR backwards. Gear on the top of your head, is what we’re talking about.
24 What makes chicken opt for secure road crossing? (10)
CHECKPOINT – (CHICKEN OPT*). I scratched my head over the definition, but it must be a reference to border crossings like the infamous Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.
26 Trick allows second duke to escape old magistrate (4)
DOGE – the trick is a DO[d]GE.
27 Space probes face constant thundering in explosive aftermath (8,5)
MUSHROOM CLOUD – MUSH (face), ROOM (space), C (constant), LOUD (thundering). Assemble as instructed.

Down
1 Prepare to leave who in charge for restructure? (5,6)
WEIGH ANCHOR – (WHO IN CHARGE*), ‘for restructure’.
2 English author briefly upset European one (5)
IBSEN – NESBI[t], briefly, upset. I searched past blogs, and this wordplay has occurred more than a few times. And, to quote one of our previous bloggers, ‘I was able to get the playwright from just the initial I’.
3 Betting system is a lottery endlessly manipulated (9)
TOTALISER – (IS A LOTTER-*), ‘manipulated’.
4 Fab guy from south takes minute inside shops (7)
EMPORIA – AI, ROPE taking M[inute] inside, all reversed (‘from the south’).
5 Great composer? Hear hear! (5)
LISZT – in the wordplay , the first ‘hear’ tells us that this is a ‘soundslike’ clue, and the second HEAR = LISTEN = LIST (archaic or poetic)! Another where the answer was rather biffable, but this time I had to think hard to get the wordplay.
6 Doctor was there with daughter for turning point (9)
WATERSHED – (WAS THERE D*), ‘doctored’.
7 Fast runner third in original Marathon we hear? (3)
ROE – the third letter of Marathon is R. In the original Greek alphabet, that letter was called RHO, which (we hear) sounds like ROE. As to whether roe deer run fast, ask the setter!
12 Party lost cool about university being opposed (11)
DISCOURAGED – DISCO, U[niversity], RAGED.
14 Ridiculously rich with gas and oil, heartless rulers (9)
OLIGARCHS – (RICH GAS O-L*), ‘ridiculously’. OIL is ‘heartless’.
15 Shocking deception almost secures gold carpet (9)
TRAUMATIC – TRIC[k] secures AU (gold) MAT.
19 Luggage English mislaid in old Italian town (7)
CASSINO – CAS[e]S are luggage, IN, O[ld].
21 Somewhat touchy person really wired (5)
HYPER – hidden answer.
23 Set to transmit commercial in Brazilian city (5)
RADIO – AD in RIO.
25 Do part badly, rest initially avoiding damage (3)
HAM – HA[r]M is damage.

36 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27564 – Saturday January 18th 2020. Hard, not hard.”

  1. ….but I wasn’t DISCOURAGED when I was slowed down gradually as I progressed.

    The 25D/27A intersection had me fancying an omelette.

    RICHARDSON was biffed, as I know Ards as a football club but DNK the peninsula.

    I chuckled at 7D as I thought of Roe as in Erica rather than a deer.

    FOI WHISTLE-BLOWER
    LOI DOGE
    COD ROE
    TIME 10:06

  2. A fairly middle-of-the-road puzzle. (Today’s is a nasty one.) I didn’t know of the peninsula (or, of course, the soccer club), but I knew the novelist (major 18th-century figure; unread today outside of Eng. Lit. classes), which was enough.
  3. Agree with our esteemed blogger that this was an enjoyable and elegant puzzle, a steady solve.
    I had heard of Richardson, who holds an important place in the development of the novel form. I could even tell you a couple of titles, notably Pamela, And Clarissa… but I have never had an urge to actually read one. Has anyone? Am i missing anything?
    1. If you get the urge, I’d advise suppressing it. I read ‘Pamela’–lampooned by Fielding in ‘Shamela’–and that was enough to keep me away from ‘Clarissa’. Both epistolary novels, a form not much in fashion these days.
    2. I read both Clarissa and Pamela at university. I rather enjoyed the former, much less the latter, but like almost everything else I read at university I don’t really remember either.
  4. Enjoyable enough apart from parsing 7dn which was too clever by half for my poor brain. NHO RICHARDSON specifically as a writer, but it’s a common enough name so there was sure to be a famous one.
  5. I wasn’t impressed with ROE, mostly, I suppose because I got it worng and bunged in rye because that’s all I could think of.
    LISZT was impressive and thank you, Bruce, for MUSHROOM CLOUD.
    Thinks: Now to find out what an epistolary novel is.
    1. I spent a lot of time on ROE–it was my LOI–partly because I wasn’t sure a roe was a thing; I knew ‘roe deer’ but not ‘roe’. And I didn’t think deer were particularly known for speed.
      An epistolary novel is one where the narration takes the form of letters from one character to another. Jane Austen’s earliest work (written when she was 15), ‘Love and Friendship’, is in that form; and it’s very funny.
  6. Exactly the same clue was in the Telegraph on the same day, which caused me a double-take.
  7. Thanks, Kevin. You’ve now inspired me to search out ‘Love and Friendship’.
    PS: I agree about today’s!

    Edited at 2020-01-25 08:41 am (UTC)

  8. 40 minutes. I biffed LISZT from crossers and then rationalised it with the thought that ‘list’ must be an archaic ‘listen’. I’d visited Bunhill Fields graveyard a couple of days before doing this, after going round Wesley’s Chapel. Buried there is John Bunyan. Spoken to from the grave, I suffered no discouragement entering DISCOURAGED. Like Phil, I only knew of Ards from the football team, but I once did read ‘Pamela’ so RICHARDSON could be constructed and then parsed. That’s enough worthy literature. COD was CHANDLER, for the sly ‘dogged’, worthy of Raymond of that ilk, causing a snicker Muttley himself would have been proud of. Very enjoyable. Thank you Bruce and setter.
    1. The definition of discourage in Chambers is:

      discourage /dis-kurˈij/
      transitive verb
      To take away the courage of
      To dishearten
      To oppose, prevent, or seek to prevent by showing disfavour

      Edited at 2020-01-25 08:55 am (UTC)

  10. It wasn’t too hard to get into this puzzle. FOI was OLIGARCHS and 1a and 1d were gettable;but then I had some of the same problems as others. LISZT was unparsed. I was uneasy about ROE but remembered they ran pretty quickly when chased by Fenton in Richmond Park.
    Ards I knew as a football team and got RICHARDSON fairly quickly;another well known author whom I have never read; Walter Scott is another -any votes for him?
    My last two were IBSEN and PINS. Despite solving a similar clue for Ibsen recently I struggled with this; partly because I thought Leg side = ON in 8a. Then I thought it might be KISS after Ibsen appeared -it’s a term in lawn bowling. I did check that before submitting.
    An enjoyable puzzle overall. David
    1. There aren’t any ROE in Richmond Park. I thought they were all reds but according to the website there are also some fallow.
  11. An hour and three, taking a chance on the unknown RICHARDSON clued by the unknown peninsula, and also not knowing what was going on in 5d or 7d.

    Having tried to figure 7d out after submission, I found that Allison ROE is a famous marathoner from New Zealand, so I assumed that she was what the setter was getting at, rather than a deer. I could well be barking up the wrong tree, though. Marathoners aren’t known for their speed in general, but she was fast for a marathoner, I suppose…

    Edited at 2020-01-25 09:16 am (UTC)

    1. The Times does not use living people in clues or answers.
      I would say all deer are known for their speed, myself .. Wikipedia says of roe deer: “The roe deer is primarily crepuscular, very quick and graceful”
      [to save anyone having to look it up, crepuscular means active mainly at twilight 🙂 ]
  12. I had this all done and dusted in about 12 mins other than ROE. After another 3 minutes or more I went for RAE thinking there might be a river RAE. There is in fact a small river in Birmingham, the river REA.

    COD: reluctantly goes to ROE.

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  14. 23:51. LOI ROE, slightly surprised like others that it was clued as “Fast runner”, but it does make for a good surface reading. It took me a while to see what “third in original Marathon” meant, though. I loved LISZT and quite liked EMPORIA and PINS too. Thanks Bruce and setter.
  15. I also took a while getting through this one. I’ve forgotten where I started, but it might have been 1a as I remember getting IBSEN from the first letter early in the solve. I didn’t know RICHARDSON, but it seemed likely and I knew of the town of NEWTONARDS, which I assumed might have been a new town on a peninsula when it came into being. WEIGH ANCHOR was a late entry. I spotted rho as the third of marathon and assumed ROE deer run fast. Liked CASSINO. 42:41. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  17. Anyway, to return to the matter at hand, can I just say ‘chicken opt’? Perhaps Dr Adesola can advise me on how to stop giggling.
  18. 7dn Fast runner third in original Marathon we hear (3)

    Nah! The third letter R from Marathon, which is also the original UK name for ‘Snickers’ candy bar. So add OE (abb. Old English) giving ROE – we hear sounds like ‘rho’ the seventeenth letter of the Greek alphabet. Take the 17 remove the 1 (third letter of original) and add DNF to give 7dnff (ff = Fast Forward, denoting its position in the clue).

    FOI 14ac OLIGRACHS

    LOI 7dn RYE – Yorkshire river

    COD not 7dn

    WOD 1ac WHISTLE BLOWER most contrumporaneous

    Edited at 2020-01-25 12:51 pm (UTC)

  19. 40:42. I clearly found this fiddly in parts. I remember having no trouble working out that 7dn was a rho roe row your boat homophone but I never managed to parse Liszt. The epistolary novel may have had its day but Zadie Smith’s On Beauty begins with an affectionate nod to the epistolary tradition (albeit in the updated – and now probably outdated – form of an exchange of emails). I wonder if there are any more recent examples?
  20. 2d is ridiculous. We are supposed to 1) get an obscure english author, 2) remove the last letter 3) get a another author from a anagram of the remaining letters.
    7d is no better. A deer isn’t a noted fast runner.
    Me no likey
    1. There’s no anagramming required in the clue. I’d hardly describe the author of The Railway Children as obscure, but even if you haven’t heard of her ‘European [author]’ and I_S_N is surely a giveaway.
  21. 11:48. No problems with this. I didn’t know the Italian town so followed the instructions. I thought 5dn LISZT was excellent.
  22. 80 minutes, but at least I finished. After finally seeing the anagram for TOTALISER, my LOI, RICHARDSON, fell into place, but only because it seemed a likely name. I have never heard of the author nor the peninsula (nor very much any other place in Northern Ireland apart from Belfast). LISZT is indeed brilliant and I did manage to parse it, at a time when I believe I had only the final T to guide me.

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